Lots of tomato cages! Photo by Scott David Gordon

To prepare our tomato plants for the Spring/Summer growing season, we either stake or cage them, depending on whether the plant is a "determinant" or an "indeterminant" variety.  Indeterminant varieties grow much taller throughout the season than determinant ones; therefore, we use the tall stakes on the indeterminant varieties (like Heirloom, cherries, and San Marzano tomatoes) and the cages on the determinant varieties (mainly, our large beefsteak tomatoes).  The stakes require a lot more work because, once they are in the ground, we have to continue to tie the plants to the stakes as they grow.  We do this once a week throughout the season and use a tomato tying tool made from pvc pipe to help us get around each plant more easily.  It would be a lot easier if we could just use cages on all of our plants, but the reality is that this would be too costly due to the amount of material we would need to make the cages high enough for the indeterminate varieties.  For the determinant varieties, though, the cages do very well.  Our photographer, Scott David Gordon, captured the following images of these cages being made and then placed over the plants. (To see Scott's images of our staked tomato plants, just click on the OLDER POSTS link at the bottom of this page and scroll down to last week's From the Farmer's Perspective).

Greenhouse Manager Mike Reed rolls wire he just cut into a tomato cage.

Mike has some fun testing his balancing skills.

Bonifacio places cages around the plants.

A tomato plant with cage.

Completed rows.